After almost thirty years, shoegaze legends Drop Nineteens are announcing their official return. The full original line up of Ackell, Steve Zimmerman, Paula Kelley, Motohiro Yasue, and Peter Koeplin has reunited to create a new album entitled Hard Light, the full-length will be available on November 3rd on Wharf Cat Records. The LP is the successor to their highly influential album Delaware. To mark the announce the band are sharing the lead single “Scapa Flow.”

The band have shared stages with Radiohead, Hole, Blur, PJ Harvey and Smashing Pumpkins. They went from being teenagers in Boston to mid-twenty-somethings with videos on MTV, sessions on the BBC, world tours and numerous festival appearances under their belt. So when Drop Nineteens ceased to be, their lead singer and songwriter Greg Ackell felt content. He had the rest of his life in front of him to figure out what he wanted to do. Music was a closed chapter.

In the decades that followed, despite the band’s turn away from the spotlight, Drop Nineteens’ legacy grew. Delaware came to be considered a classic of the genre, landing on lists of the greatest shoegaze albums of all time, with Pitchfork saying that “Delaware set Drop Nineteens squarely in a league of their own” on their run down of the genre’s best albums. The band’s catalog also found a new life on streaming, where tracks like “Winona” and “Kick The Tragedy” have racked up millions of streams and reached a new audience, becoming a touchstone influence for the new wave of American shoegaze.

It was in this context that in 2021 a friend from the band’s early days got Ackell on the phone to suggest making some music together, just to see how it felt. Instead of shutting it down like he had been doing over the years, he decided to entertain the prospect. For the first time in nearly 30 years, he picked up a guitar with intent.

Drop Nineteens
Hard Light
Tracklist
Wharf Cat Records

1. Hard Light
2. Scapa Flow
3. Gal
4. Tarantula
5. The Price Was High
6. Rose With Smoke
7. A Hitch
8. Lookout
9. Another One Another
10. Policeman Getting Lost
11. T

Drop Nineteens 2023 Tour Dates

October 10 @ The Atlantis (Washington DC) w/ Greg Mendez
October 11 @ Union Transfer (Philadelphia PA) w/ Horse Jumper Of Love
October 12 @ The Paradise (Boston MA) w/ Greg Mendez
October 13 @ Warsaw (Brooklyn NY) w/ Greg Mendez
October 19 @ The Belasco (Los Angeles CA) w/ Winter
October 22 @ The New Parish (Oakland CA) w/ Winter